MSI Z97M Gaming Review

Published by Hiwa Pouri on 22.07.14
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Features

Military Class 4 Components

MSI's fancy name for high quality components, the Military Class 4 Components certified motherboards, are equiped with Hi-CCAP, Super Ferrite Choke and Dark CAPs for better stability, durability, efficiency and current as well as DrMOS 4, which is the name of the new MOSFETs which should deliver more than 600+ Watts for extreme overclocking.
 

Super stable with Guard-Pro

On their latest motherboads MSI has added a couple of new features, named Guard-Pro, which are divided in six different categories and are basicaly the circuit protection where MSI selected the best materials, Eco Power which physically cuts the power to unsed chips in order to save more than 29% power usage, Humidity Protection wich is very good for humid places and has 10% higher failure rate on PCB, High Temperature protection where MSI tested components in the hardest environments to insure stable operation, ESD Protection used for the new black I/O shield protect the board against electro-static discharge, and EMI Protection, which is made to reduce the impact of electromagnetic interference.
 

Gaming Device Port

Looking at the I/O shield we find two red USB ports which MSI calls Gaming Device Ports and which are optimized to deliver the best connectivity for gaming mice while helping gamers to have faster mouse response where needed.
 

OC Genie 4 / Click Bios 4

These days, all the motherboard companies care about overclocking and MSI was one of the first companies which helped normal users to overclock their system. The OC Genie 4 is a button for Overclocking CPU, Memory and the iGPU, and allows you to get up to 20 percent more performance with a simple press of a button.
   

Audio Boost 2

MSI equips its latest and greatest motherboard with an improved audio solution which includes the Realtek ALC1150 chip, Dual headphone amplifier. At the I/O shield we find golden audio jacks which is to improve the audio signals as well as high quality capacitors from nichicon and the PCB separation, As well as USB audio power to inhance USB audio quality and stable 5V power and better signal transmission over USB.
   

Killer Ethernet

It is rather obvious that MSI is not only optimizing this board for overclocking but also for gaming as well. Next to the beefed up audio solution there is the Killer Ethernet chip, which gives gamers additional control over a variety of network settings, which in the end can help reduce latency.
     

M.2 Support

The new Z97M Gaming motherboard from MSI features an M.2 slot which is placed between the two PCIe slots. This motherboard can be equipped with an SSD in M.2 format and it is wired directly to the Z97 PCH via two PCI Express lanes, therefore offering x2 bandwidth. In other words up to 10 Gbps can be pushed over the bus through this slot, almost doubling the performance compared to the SATA-III port.


Page 1 - Introduction Page 14 - SiSoft Sandra 2
Page 2 - Specs and Delivery Page 15 - UC Bench
Page 3 - Features Page 16 - Super Pi 1M / 32M
Page 4 - Layout Page 17 - wPrime 1024M Multi Core
Page 5 - Connectors and I/O Page 18 - Cinebench
Page 6 - BIOS Page 19 - Bioshock: Infinite
Page 7 - Test setup Page 20 - Metro Last Light
Page 8 - Preview / Gallery Page 21 - Sleeping Dogs
Page 9 - 3D Mark Page 22 - Power Consumption
Page 10 - 3D Mark 11 Page 23 - Performance Rating
Page 11 - 3D Mark Vantage  Page 24 - Price Comparison
Page 12 - PC Mark 7 Page 25 - Conclusion
Page 13 - SiSoft Sandra 1  




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MSI Z97M Gaming Review - Motherboards > Intel > Z97 - Reviews - ocaholic